Category Archives: Live Action Movies

Collide Review

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It’s time for a thriller but this one definitely isn’t going to be the next Taken. It has quite a few issues with the biggest one being the characters involved. I did like one of the villains but the film doesn’t use him as much as you would want. There was potential all around here, but ultimately I can see why nobody really talks about this film. It’s the kind of movie that just comes and goes with no real impact.

The film starts off by introducing us to Casey who works for a drug dealer. He basically does whatever the boss says. The job is certainly not a savory one but it pays the bills. His life feels rather empty though and he desperately wants a girlfriend. So while slumming it at the nearby bar, he noticed the bartender named Juliette. She agrees to become his girlfriend real quick if he just promises to give up the life of crime. He agrees…and surprisingly gets out of the business without being shot or killed. That’s a first. Well, it’s all going good until Juliette starts acting a bit extra crazy one snowy night but it’s not the cold that gets her…but a rare condition she has which involves a lot of seizures. She will be dead in a matter of weeks unless a really expensive operation can be performed on her. So Casey decides to go back to his old boss for one last job.

Naturally this job will be the toughest one yet since his boss Geran has been feuding with his boss Hagen. So he wants them to rob Hagen but the guy has a whole criminal network at his disposal and is also a lot smarter than Geran. Casey also realizes that this is likely a setup and so he decides to hatch a plan of his own. You’ve got 3 really big players running around here and of course the leverage against Casey will be simple. Whoever can capture Juliette, will have captured Casey.

The story itself is fairly straight forward so then it becomes all about the execution. Unfortunately this is where the film starts to fall flat. First off the romance is definitely weak. I appreciate the film showing that a lot of time has passed after they got together for their bond to be strong but those time jumps should have been used at the start. Instead of Juliette being convinced to be his girlfriend after a matter of minutes, make that part take weeks. It’s a rather simple fix and just like that you would have a compelling romance.

The film also goes out of its way to make both of the characters not all that likable. They’re the type of characters who are always getting drunk, going to suspect parties, and just don’t really seem like two people you’d generally get along with. Yeah Casey went straight for a while but working for the mob the way that he did, he’s certainly been involved in a lot of suspect stuff. You can write a solid anti hero but there just isn’t any real depth to the guy at all.

His big plan also revolves around the villains being absolute rookies at their own business. To stop the truck, they have to get the best hitman in the business to get out of the safety of the vehicle where they can knock him out. No way that should have happened but then it also revolves around the camera guy deciding to take a nap and not look at the truck for a few minutes. So that’s not a good plan, it’s just absolute plot armor at its finest.

I won’t fault Casey too hard for letting Juliette get captured since realistically there wouldn’t be much he could do about that but he does get the blame for the rest of the plan. Meanwhile his boss Geran is a little too quirky. He’s hard of hearing and constantly drunk. He doesn’t always make a lot of sense and yet he wants to be equal partners with the biggest crime lord on the planet? Yeah, I can see why Hagen doesn’t take him seriously.

Hagen is really the standout character here. I like how he just talks smack to Geran right to the guy’s face. He is absolutely confident that victory is around the corner and never falters. Hagen has a bit of a weak ending but for the most part he is always a few steps ahead. The last scenes just make him look sloppy, although I’d argue everyone looks sloppy there. When you’re a big crime lord, you’re probably not going to be going to a small diner without many escape routes unless you’ve either completely bought out the police or have a private army. It all just felt a little forced but I did enjoy the banter.

The best thing I can say about the film is that Hagen is so interesting that all of his scenes absolutely jump up a level. I love when a villain is really smug like this and he definitely made sure that the rest of the characters knew just how powerful he was. Now this does result in quite a bit of plot armor on his end too, but that’s just how these things go.

For example, at one point Casey runs into a small convenience shop and the villains chase him inside. The two owners both have guns and one of them is a really good shot. Despite this, they allow the villains to raise up their guns and fire. It’s probably the dumbest moment in the film. When an armed fighter runs into your shop, you need to fire quickly instead of waiting until they take their gun out. Obviously, the villains won’t hesitate so your hesitation will equal death.

Overall, Collide has a lot of action but not a whole lot of spirit. It’s going through the motions and could have been a solid emotional film but Casey and Juliette just aren’t likable enough to be convincing. The film’s got that Hollywood style of romance where there isn’t a whole lot of build up or getting to know each other as we jump straight to fanservice and action. It comes across as superficial and a single villain isn’t enough to hold this film up. You can do a lot better when it comes to action thrillers so I would say to skip this one.

Overall 4/10

Alligator II: The Mutation Review

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It’s time to see just how powerful an alligator can be! The first film was pretty terrible but maybe this one would be an improvement? I do think it was the better film although I ultimately still can’t say that it was a good one. The main problem is of course that with an evil alligator on the loose, you know that some animal violence will be soon to follow. The movie actually keeps itself a bit more tame than I would usually expect in this genre though so I will give it some credit here. Not a ton of credit mind you….but some.

The movie starts with two fishermen underestimating the terrors of the night as they are murdered by a giant alligator. This area has been heckled by the wealthy businessman named Vincent for a long while as he is trying to buy out all of the land and so they figure he had something to do with it. In a sense they’re right, but it’s not like they can prove it. So David decides to look into this as he’s used to doing things against the book as a cop. Unfortunately it’ll be difficult since Vincent has bought out the mayor and so now the cops are forced to be rather hands off. Vincent’s certainly not going to be of any help so David has to work with the rookie cop Rich in order to stop this threat. Meanwhile Vincent hires some pros of his own to do the job in the sneak. Which group will destroy the alligator first?

I guess corruption and evil millionaires are par for the course when it comes to these evil animal films. Vincent definitely carries himself well though. I appreciate all of the threats and he really did have the mayor cornered throughout the movie. Near the end he even managed to get him alone to finish the job. Vincent’s one of those villains who never let his guard down and by the end of the film it took quite a lot of people to defeat him. Most impressive I gotta say.

The mayor looked rather terrible throughout though. As soon as you let people blackmail you the way that he did, there is no way out. They’re just going to keep on doing it, over and over again until you are completely out of the running. I sort of expected that the mayor would do something but no, he just ended up staying scared all the way through to the end. His daughter Sherri had a lot more backbone as she was trying to fight against the injustice.

On the heroes side, we had the rookie cop, Rich. That guy wasn’t very good though. Letting himself get drunk is a terrible idea since a cop always needs to be ready. He also misses his shots when it counts so he’s not really the guy I would want to watch my back. He’s not a terrible character or anything but he is unreliable and that’s a really important factor in a mission like this.

David does well as the main cop. This is clearly not his first rodeo and he handles himself like an absolute professional. It’s what you would expect from the main character. He’s more concerned with justice than following the rules and that’s why he gets the job done. He has the respect of the people within the neighborhood for this same reason. The rest of the characters are definitely not able to catch him. Now the film does make it a point to show that he does take this a bit far to the point of obsession where he won’t be home much and that makes things tough on his wife and kid. He can probably find a better middle ground but at least he is getting results.

His wife also does well here as her scientist specialty helps her figure out different things like a possible weakness for the big alligator. It’s always nice to see both members of the main couple contributing like this. We also got some help from one of the local gator experts. He actually puts up a fight and lasts for a little while which is nice since initially his group was not looking very impressive at all. For a while there I was starting to think that they were all frauds.

The movie can’t avoid the animal violence in the end though as we do inevitably have to see the alligator get taken down. Additionally, it’s a shame for the gator since he doesn’t actually get a ton of screentime. Half the time when he’s eating people you aren’t really seeing him but at least his presence is felt throughout the movie. You may have been expecting a huge cliffhanger for this film like the first but surprisingly that’s not really the case.

The film also has a difficult time trying to make you buy into the main romance that is set up between the rookie and the mayor’s daughter here. I mean, finding the guy locked in the bathroom is not a great first impression and I would argue things only look worse for him from there. The main couple is already married which makes that romance a lot easier.

In the end I feel like the human plot was a lot more engaging than the animal stuff. I could have had fun with the whole thing being about Vincent trying to take over the neighborhood and shooting anyone in his way. He was clearly good at this and had the political power to pull this off. I’ll take the conspiracy stuff any day as opposed to the evil animal plot where the animal is really minding his own business and doesn’t want to fight. You feel bad for the creature.

Overall, Alligator II isn’t a whole lot of fun. It’s a decent adventure and another short film so the pacing is fine but it’s not really doing anything different with the creature. The alligator crawls around and looks menacing but that’s about it for most of the animal scenes. You are rooting for him to take down all the pesky humans invading his turf and it’s not nearly as bloody as something like Piranha. Still, the alligator is going to get stabbed and then blown to bits and you don’t want to see that. I’d recommend skipping this one. If you have to watch an evil animal film then it beats a lot of the alternatives, but it still doesn’t quite step into the realm of being a good movie.

Overall 3/10

Piranha (1995) Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for one of those films that feels like a waste of time. Why would you make a film that is essentially a 1-1 adaption of the original movie? If you’re going to do a remake of something, it should be with what you envision as improvements to the source material or perhaps just fixing a bunch of plot holes. When you just copy over most of the script and everything, it comes across as just plain lazy. Unfortunately it’s not like the original film was any good either.

The movie starts with two teenagers deciding to share some bad decisions as they jump into a body of water and get eaten by piranhas. This takes us over to Maggie who has been hired to find out what happened to them. This area is in the middle of nowhere so she asks for help from Paul, a guy who prefers to be apart from humanity and their crazy shenanigans. Well, that’s not in the cards now as the two of them discover a huge conspiracy involving government funding and powerful piranhas. Will they be able to stop these creatures?

Yeah if you saw the first film then you basically know how this one plays out. Mainly this one is just edgier the whole time but that’s about all it has to offer. The deaths all tend to be extremely violent and brutal. Additionally, the film has to resort to cheap fanservice on multiple occasions. It really has nothing to do with the story so this is just here because the writers are not confident in their own scripts to pull this off. Additionally, they don’t even bump off the creepy director as he somehow lives through the experience in one of the film’s few gag scenes. Bit of an odd choice.

Maggie is a decent main character. She may come off as a bit hostile to start the film but considering that there are potentially dead teenagers around, I get why she would not be in a particularly good mood here. She doesn’t do well in the opening action scene against Leticia but the same is true of Paul. That was actually a pretty decent fight as Leticia cleverly used the surroundings to her advantage and was easily dominating the 2 v 1. She just underestimated them in the end.

Leticia’s definitely not a great character though as she easily could have explained things instead of immediately entering a murderous rage. While her character arc is meant to end on a rather heroic note, it fell flat for me because it just didn’t make sense. Hopping into the water was a guaranteed death and they were better off trying to paddle a bit faster to the kid who was still on the surface. If anything they could have destroyed him accidentally by tipping it over.

Then we have Paul who is rather jaded and you could argue that the film proves him right here. He doesn’t care much for people and then he has to enter a world where there are giant cover ups and lots of corruption everywhere. It’s no wonder that he wanted to live on his own so he could at least try and avoid it. In the end, he did his best once it counted so he was fine as the reluctant hero type. Not a character that really stands out but he wasn’t bad.

Finally we have the main villain Randolph and I actually thought that they did a good job with him. This guy doesn’t play around and embodies being as evil as possible right from the jump. Not every character would be able to pull that off after all. Yeah he’s a bit cheesy and perhaps over the top but that’s the best way to handle these rich types of villains. If they played him too seriously then it probably wouldn’t have worked as well.

He’s the right blend of competent and sarcastic throughout the movie. The way he goes out is rather underwhelming though. Of course, the film could have 100 amazing villains but it wouldn’t save it when you consider all of the prior negatives as well as the fact that they squeezed in a dog for a particularly violent death. Yeah that scene meant that the film was absolutely going to be doomed. There is plenty of violence everywhere in the film as it is, why add the dog to the mix? It’s the kind of scene that feels like it’s just there for max shock value.

I can’t say that there are many positives to be had about the film at all. The main villain might be the biggest rain of sunshine here. Otherwise, I suppose the film isn’t terribly long so it doesn’t really drag on. The pacing is all right and I wouldn’t say that the writing is particularly awful. It just has to throw in way too many distractions and annoying moments at all times that continue to chip away at the movie from start to finish. Hopefully one day we will actually get a good Piranha movie but I have my doubts.

Overall, Piranha is still a terrible movie. I would highly advise you to stay away from this one. It’s just too mean spirited and nothing about it ends up being a satisfying watch. Instead the longer the film goes on, the more you will end up shaking your head this time. There aren’t very many evil animal films that I can even recommend because almost inevitably they end up faltering. They just don’t have a whole lot of potential right from the start because the evil animals will usually bring a whole lot of animal violence with them. Then you have to factor in that this is basically a slasher film and those never end up being very good anyway.

Overall 1/10

The Trail Beyond Review

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Time for another John Wayne adventure and this one gets intense when the lead has to fend off against armed adversaries. It’s another solid adventure with good pacing and a lot of fun to be had. It may not be the most memorable adventure but it was fun to see different backdrops like a train rather than the pure wild west all the time.

The film starts with Rod riding the train when he bumps into his old friend Wabi. Wabi isn’t the sharpest guy around and decides to play some high stakes gambling with a bunch of folks. Turns out that one of them was cheating and this quickly gets violent. A gunshot is fired and someone dies so now Wabi is on the run. He and Rod jump off the train to escape but by the time they change into Cowboy gear, they are already wanted for murder. They’re going to need to lie low but trouble has a knack of finding them. See they find a treasure map in an abandoned house where two men have been dead for generations. They take this to the nearby shop to be locked up but are seen and now the villains want it. Guess Rod might have to test out his gun skills.

Now there is some drama to be had here. There’s a girl who works at the shop named Felice and poor Wabi thinks that they are dating or at least are informally together. Unfortunately he forgot to tell her that and she immediately falls for Rod because of how manly he is. She is so infatuated that she even gets jealous when the villains hire a girl to work at the store undercover and Rod shows some interest. It feels a bit soon to get jealous since they barely know each other but hey that’s how it goes. The villains also got lucky there since their plan involved getting the girl hired and even for back then that seemed a bit easy.

Throughout the film, Wabi mainly just seems to be here to make Rod look even better. Wabi’s not as good of a fighter and it’s Rod who is doing all of the planning and thinking. Without him, Wabi would have been caught and taken don near the very beginning of the film. I also can’t feel too sympathetic to him, at least in the romantic department because it does feel like he was taking everything for granted. You do need to formally confess and get things started if you’re hoping for a relationship.

As for Rod, I appreciate that he was on business throughout the film. While Wabi worries about love, Rod is busy trying to make sure they can get to the treasure map and as a side bonus, get the cops off their trail. Yeah the opening scene becomes less important as the film goes on but the ending deals with it real quick. In a sense, you didn’t need the first scene since the treasure map plot is almost completely different but it did make for a fun opening action scene.

The soundtrack is still as iconic as ever. As soon as the music starts, you now exactly what kind of film you’re about to get. The writing and script are both solid as well so on technical elements it passes as always. The films are very consistent and you always know that you will be having a good time. I guess the most annoying character would be the deputy/ranger who was following the leads. Even after the villains kidnap him and it becomes contextually obvious what is going on, he still says that he will arrest the duo.

He basically threatens them not to untie him because he will attack them right away and Rod has to point out how dumb that would be. This guy just doesn’t have a clue and it’s what happens when you’re so focused on your orders that you forget common sense. I was definitely shaking my head at him the whole time. I know he eventually saw reason but it sure took him a while to get there and that made the villains look smarter in comparison.

Honestly the villains were pretty resourceful this time around. Hiring the girl to be at the job site, having a guy in a good position to watch if anyone puts good valuables into the safe, arresting the heroes, taking hostages, etc. They were really busy throughout the film and you could find them around every corner. The main villain himself is a bit interchangeable so he’s not particularly memorable, but he was effective. Sometimes these crooks put in so much effort you think they may as well have just worked a real job instead to save time and effort. It’s not like people are depositing treasure maps all the time so they could have been waiting years for a big score. I guess they’d just go back to robbing banks or something.

Overall, This was a pretty good film. I like to think that the title is referencing how the trains are past the usual trail and that’s their way of saying it. That said, if I was recommending this to folks, it probably wouldn’t be my highest John Wayne recommendation. I feel like he has still had a few other films that were better like with Singing Sam. This one doesn’t have a big memorable villain and we’ve seen better sidekicks before. Still, the film has quality writing and a good soundtrack so it still passes the bill where it counts.

Overall 7/10

Karate Kid: Legends Review

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It’s time to look at the next Karate Kid film. It was always a bit sad when we learned that LaRusso wasn’t going to be the main character this time around because that would have really helped to make the stakes higher an ever. That being said, the film is still good. It can be a little all over the place at times but still captures the spirit of the series and makes for a film that is easy to watch.

The movie starts with Li having to move all the way from Beijing to New York. He isn’t happy about this but his mother has wanted to put some distance from the world of kung fu after something tragic happened to Li’s brother. Li doesn’t really want to fight anymore, but he does like to keep up with his training. Well, he won’t have much of a choice now that he is in New York since a bully named Conor shows up and just starts whaling on him. The guy has a chip on his soldier because the girl he likes is the pizza girl at the shop that Li frequents and the two became quick friends. Li is going to have to defeat this guy physically in order to end this but the problem is that Conor is more powerful. Li will have to train hard.

This probably would have been enough as the main plot but you’ve also got Mia’s father, Victor who is trying to win a boxing match to pay off some loan sharks. Victor really made sure to owe money to the worst people he could have picked and now that is coming back to bite him. So you have the flip of what usually happens in these films as Li is the one teaching someone how to fight. Although the second half goes back to normal on this.

I would say what the film lacked here was more fights. For a film with karate in the title, there aren’t a ton of fight scenes here. The climax has a bunch of quick fights and one real one but before that you will just get a pair of skirmishes and that’s it. The film was definitely trying to set up a lot of character dynamics and everything but it would have been best to have embraced the action roots a little more. Not that the first films were necessarily heavy on action but you would just expect more.

The film also made a mistake on making Li a little too weak initially. I understand him not being the most powerful out there as it wouldn’t make for much of a film but Conor thoroughly dismantled him the whole time. Even in the climax of the film it felt like Li was a little out of his league. So they could have stood to make this a bit more even so the climax could be more believable. At least that’s the way I see it.

As a main character Li isn’t bad. I do think it takes him a little too long to get with the program though. It was a real rough look to see him falter in the flashback of what happened to his brother and for that to happen again in the present with another character was terrible. He also overreacted pretty hard at the San Genaro festival. Now, I do think the scene made Mia look bad regardless of her explanations later because it’s true that she looked a little too happy, but jumping to conclusions was pretty childish.

Particularly since Li knew they were just friends at that point. He really just needed to talk things out or at the very least not be petty about it. I definitely gotta take Daniel La Russo over him. As for Mia, she wasn’t bad but also on the very emotional side here. Definitely a lot of drama here like when she decides to give Li the silent treatment. I guess for a Karate Kid film you want some drama, but I was always looking forward to getting back to the man plot. I’ll give her credit for not being a jerk when Li wanted to order a stuffed crust pizza. I never knew that scene was from this movie as it tends to make the rounds with memes about how stuffed crust isn’t a real pizza.

Conor make for a fairly weak villain. He’s just way too petty the whole time. So I’m saying weak in terms of personality, he’s technically rather powerful. The guy was dominating most of his opponents. He knows how to fight hard and how to fight dirty which is a really impressive combination. You’re just not going to be able to beat someone like that. Even by the end of the film you feel like he was the best fighter of the next generation.

I would have liked to have seen more of Daniel in this film but it was good to see him get a quick fight scene. Having him get to fight Conor’s teacher would have been more satisfying though. We’d see that he still has the fighting abilities that are needed to win at the top level. Han is also solid although he’s definitely no Mr. Miyagi. He does his best to make sure that Li is ready to fight and doesn’t back down. If anything you just feel bad for Li’s mother who has some valid points about why he shouldn’t fight anymore but gets overruled throughout the whole film. I don’t feel like the characters ever really tried to hear her out.

Although she was unreasonable with spouting platitudes about not resorting to violence when Li was actively being bullied. She took a very old fashioned black and white approach to fighting when that’s just not going to cut it here. You should never be blamed for defending yourself when you’re being attacked. It also feels like the referees are a bit underpowered in this one. The villains just ignore them and go for cheap shots with the ref literally being shoved out of the way more than once. If you defeat someone using exclusively illegal moves, shouldn’t the opponent win by technical penalty victory? Maybe that’s not how it is in real life but I’d be surprised when it is to this extent.

I’d probably have cut out Victor’s plot here with the loan sharks to focus a bit more on Li. I think that would have worked out better although the boxing fight was still pretty fun. As a whole the movie is fun due to the good writing and solid pacing so it has a good amount of replay value. At the same time, it does feel like this film could have been a lot more ambitious. The way it plays out, this may as well have been made a reboot since the previous films didn’t matter a whole lot. The credits scene is also a bit weak. Not bad but I would have liked something that was a whole lot more hype. Also, you know that the two characters got serious food poisoning afterwards.

Overall, Karate Kid: Legends has a good sense of humor and is a fun action film to check out. You’ll definitely be able to feel Li’s frustration as he is surrounded by cheaters and thugs with nobody wanting to do anything about it. The pressure is on him and it’s quite intense. Still, he manages to get the job done and the ending certainly leaves room for more sequels should they want to pursue that. If you like the Karate Kid series then you definitely owe it to yourself to check this one out. You’ll probably find it to be nostalgic.

Overall 6/10

Rainbow Valley Review

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It’s time for a little more John Wayne action! Interestingly this one I got to see in more of a natural format than the others. So it looks a whole lot older than the others and the sound quality also ends up being a bit blurry. It helps with the authenticity of course but ultimately this wouldn’t be one of the strongest Wayne titles. We do get to see him being undercover again which is always fun though.

John is seemingly wandering through the land when he bumps into a guy who was about to be attacked in a trap by some robbers. John scares them off easily enough and then finds out that this town has been terrorized by this gang for a long time. What they need is to be able to carve out a path for a new railway which will help the local economy as well as allow for the authorities to get there quicker. The villains are determined to prevent that happening. So how can John pull this off? The townsfolk can help him dig the tunnel through but otherwise the villains have the edge on guns. Well…maybe he can use them to make the tunnel.

It’s a pretty fun turnaround to have John literally making the villains do the hard work by tricking them into thinking that they’re all on the same side. It’s something that you can’t imagine most characters would be able to pull off but John has that natural confidence about him. He just has to make them think that it’s their idea and then he’s off to the races. Mainly this is done through a conversation at the bar.

Every time John says the right thing, the villains are quick to affirm how smart John is being and that they’re glad he sees it their way. John has that confident smirk the whole time and fortunately he is actually really good at bombing and detonation so he knows how to do this even without a written plan. It’s also a good thing that he worked fast since the town naturally gets the wrong idea and nearly gets together to take him down. Now that would have been rough. In their defense, it was looking bad for John I suppose.

They had wired the governor to ask for help but unfortunately had to pass it through the mail room where it was intercepted. It was not one of their best moments to put it mildly. Additionally, John was a newcomer here and seemed really suspicious. By the end of the film we get a twist about John but the hero wasn’t really in a position to unveil his true reason for being here. So he played it well and ultimately things worked out well enough.

This film definitely focused more on the gun fights than the fist battles this time around. We had long shootouts at the railway twice, and in each case it was mainly a stalemate with the villains getting the slight edge. These battles still aren’t quite as exhilarating as a classic fist fight but it definitely does take talent to get all of the characters set up like this.

As always the writing is pretty good here. You have a solid script and the pacing is on point. These elements tend to be the same for all of the old John Wayne titles so I’d be more surprised if it had changed. The films really go by in an instant but this is really the right way to handle a wester. For the most part these films are about glamorizing it to an extent and showing how much fun the wild west could be while newer films tend to take a much more grounded approach that isn’t generally as much fun.

Sure, deep down we know that living in the wild west was probably not that much fun, but the films let you forget that for a few minutes to just enjoy the story. I definitely can’t fault them for that. I would have liked a bit more action in this film but beyond that I have no real complaints. The film delivers on exactly what you would have expected from it.

Overall, Rainbow Valley is a pretty good film. It feels more dated than the rest but if you watch the smoothed version for it (Assuming there is one, but I bet there is) then it probably won’t feel any different than the rest. It’s always fun to see John taking command of a situation and showing the villains what is up. Ironically this is one of the few times where the town was ready to fight back and evidently had been doing so even before John showed up. They were unfortunately outgunned at this and tended to be on the losing side but at least they tried. That’s way more than they tend to do in any of these western films so that was a good change of pace. If you haven’t checked this film out yet, you should definitely change that.

Overall 7/10

The Mechanic Review

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It’s time for a film that definitely doesn’t have a very positive aura about it. This one is satisfied with being a bit more of a downer and unfortunately that does end up hurting the film. If the film could have balanced in some more upbeat moments or maybe gotten a better main character cast then things could have been different. You may still appreciate some of the creativity in the murder tactics here but that’s about it.

The film introduces us to Arthur who is one of the top hitmen in the world. He takes out the targets that he is given with pinpoint accuracy. He has been at this for a long time and so he is fairly wealthy and has a lot of resources but at the same time he can also be a bit lonely. He has even gotten desperate enough to hire a girl for a roleplay relationship which shows just how down he is. Well, one day a guy called Steven shows interest in his work and Arthur sees that this guy is a total psychopath. So he recruits him, will this be a fatal mistake?

The first rule of being a hitman is not to trust anyone after all. You see first hand what happens to people who do begin to trust others and it’s not pretty. Additionally, Arthur quickly finds some suspicious things about Steve but looks past them. He is really hoping this will work out but I give Arthur credit for having a backup plan which is more than most characters would have in his position. Without that, I would have been considerably harsher on him.

I don’t like Arthur either way, but at least his reputation is deserved. His most impressive scene was probably at the beginning where we see him prepare numerous death traps for someone so that if any of them fail, he will have a few backups. It was a good way to set the tone of just what he does. Arthur doesn’t like flashy kills. He’s not walking around with grenades or something like that. He likes the preparation phase and making sure that things are lined up just right.

This doesn’t work so well for his bosses who like their feeling of power even more than the results. Meanwhile Steve is far less likable because he just feels more psychotic. For Arthur this feels like a job while for Steve it’s a total infatuation. We get a long scene where one of his friends decides to check out of life and see if he will stop her. Naturally he doesn’t and just makes a bunch of jokes before leaving. Yeah it was a toxic move on her part but it doesn’t make his response any less disturbing.

You may need that kind of mindset to a degree to become a hitman but it definitely didn’t help his case at all. The guy was so smug that you definitely wanted someone to be able to take him out. He makes some basic mistakes during the missions as well and never seems to have a lot of self reflection. Definitely a liability so Arthur’s bosses were right about that. Also the more people you bring into the fold, the more that things can go wrong.

While the film could be a bit dreary, I do think that the ending was just about perfect. It’s a really satisfying climax that ensures one character doesn’t just walk away. That would have probably been one of the worst case scenarios here. it’s not like a villain can never end up winning in a film. I’ve seen a few where the heroes lose out and it works well enough but this guy is one where you’re just rooting really hard to keep him from securing a victory.

The writing is good enough here. You see everyone being polite and really fake the whole time. It’s a good reminder to be careful because even if someone seems really personable and sympathetic, they may actually have been hired to bump you off. One of Arthur’s victims certainly didn’t think that one of his old friends would be the murderer but that’s how it goes sometimes. You don’t have to live in a very paranoid way or anything like that, but just keep your guard up.

If you do want to be paranoid though, this film shows the importance of setting up little traps in your apartment. Tiny pieces of paper or things arranged in a way where you’ll know if someone was inside your apartment while you were gone. There are lots of clever ways to set this up and if I lived by myself I would definitely do that. In the worst case, you’re just doing an extra 10 minutes of work every day so that’s a really good risk/reward ratio.

Overall, This film wasn’t all that good but I wouldn’t call it awful or anything. In fact if you cut out the scene with the girl bleeding to death then I think the film would have broken even. To me that moment was just going a bit too far in how bleak things were. It’s sad to see so many empty characters in this film. At least with the main two, they knew the risks here and are primed for a rough outcome, but some random person who didn’t seem all there? That was a bit much. I also would have preferred if Arthur handled himself a bit better since that fake romance just made him look so bad. It may have just been a quick scene but it was a rough moment for him. So if you really enjoy films about hitmen then this could be worth checking out, but otherwise I would say to give it a skip. There are better films that focus more on the villains.

Overall 4/10

Sagebrush Trail Review

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John Wayne still has more adventures to go through and so now we’re back here with another one. This time Wayne has to go undercover to put a stop to one of the most dangerous gangs around. The only way to trick his adversaries is to also trick his friends which ends up getting him in quite a bit of trouble. It’s a pretty fun film all the way through and fits right in with the rest.

The film starts off with John on the run as he has to clear his name once more. He ends up bumping into a guy named Joseph who introduces him to a gang that could always use a little extra firepower. John agrees as a way to sabotage the gang and along the way he also wants to help Joseph stay on the straight and narrow. It’ll be difficult though because the rest of the gang starts to suspect him early on. It makes a lot of sense because all of their plans begin to go haywire immediately after John joins up. Doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Will John survive this one?

So John means well but you can see how the plan isn’t particularly good. He also has to count on the gang not making the first move and just bumping him off. For example there is a scene early on where he tries to break up a fight and is knocked out for his troubles. That easily could have gone even worse for him. He’s also just not very subtle about ratting them out as he goes to the nearby store to flirt with the cashier and then drop the notes.

There is slightly more romance here than in the last few but only to the extent that we have John and Joseph flirting with the same girl. Ultimately you have a feeling on who is going to win out there. At least she is given a role beyond just being the love interest as she helps relay the messages and also talks to Joseph when he gets the wrong idea about what John is doing. So by giving these contributions to the story, that helped the heroine be important. Still not a strong romance though.

If you’re familiar with the Wayne films by now, you know what to expect when it comes to the fights. There is a lot of fun hand to hand combat all the way around. The script and writing are both solid and the film’s extremely short runtime helps make for quick pacing at all times. Adding Joseph in as a supporting character was a good way to not just have the film be focused around John for once. Joseph is a criminal through and through but the film does try to humanize him to an extent.

It’s part of why John feels bad for the guy since he is clearly not as heartless as the others. Unfortunately for him, this still comes a bit too late. This gang is a serious one after all and doesn’t take kindly to traitors. You also feel a bit mixed on the idea of the sympathetic villain like this. On one hand, he doesn’t seem to be the smartest guy around and is someone who can be easily influenced. So if he had a good role model then perhaps he would have been a good guy all along.

At the same time, as an adult he is still responsible for his actions. So even though we see that he is less evil than the others, just hanging around them for so long makes him guilty by association to all of the crazy crimes that they have been committing. It’s probably why his character arc had to end the way thast it did so the film wouldn’t send out a mixed message here.

The villains as a whole are not very memorable otherwise though. They’re still a fun group to have around though. They land pretty good blows here and there and did have the town running scared. If not for John, they would have really ended up dominating here. The leader in particular had a lot of confidence on his own and was the first to see through John’s ruse so you have to give him some credit there. He’s not the leader by chance or anything like that, it’s because he is absolutely the most skilled member of the group.

Finally, John was a solid hero as always. He could also really fight hand to hand when needed and was doing his best to see that justice was done. It’s more than the others could. The town gets a bunch of demerit points for not really doing anything though. The town has a lot of able bodied men so why aren’t they doing anything? It’s always my criticism for these kinds of films but it’s not something that would hurt the score of the film. It just means that you’ll be judging them rather hard. Sure there is a sheriff and he’s always ready in the climax once the heroes have the edge but without John around he ends up being rather toothless.

Overall, This was a pretty good film. It’s always fun to see John have to play the role of a villain for a bit. He definitely has that smug confidence that works well in the role. I always have a blast seeing him act, well essentially sarcastic with how he talks to the other characters. He is always rather polite to everyone on the surface but you can feel the contempt when he’s talking to one of the villains. I’d definitely recommend this movie.

Overall 7/10

‘Neath the Arizona Skies Review

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It’s time for the next John Wayne adventure and this time the hero has to really be careful because there’s a kid who is going to be getting him into lots of trouble. This extra weakness does help to separate this film from the others and get it to be a bit more unique. It’s a good bit of fun like the other John Wayne films, so if you like an upbeat western then you should enjoy this one as well.

The film starts off by introducing us to Chris and right away I was surprised that he wasn’t called John. Well Chris has been taking care of a little girl named Nina since her mother is dead and the father’s a no show. He needs to find the father, dead or alive so he can have full custody of her and they can get the money that is owed to her. Unfortunately the local thugs hear about this and decide to stop Chris. Chris nearly deflates the situation without a fight but unfortunately Nina messes up and appears even after Chris had told her not to leave the closet. Now it’s a race against time and Chris needs to make sure not to let his guard down. Doing so could be absolutely fatal!

The film couldn’t resist a little bit of a frame up though so while Chris is unconscious, a guy shows up and switches their clothes. It turns out this guy is the brother of Clara, a nice lady that Chris bumps into. That adds a little wrinkle to things but Chris is determined to stop this guy without letting Clara find out. While at face value that may seem like a nice thing to do, I would argue that she should know the truth right away. It’s true that her brother probably won’t try to put her in harm’s way, but it’s also a side effect of the occupation.

Clara doesn’t have a huge role here except to be the eventual love interest. As always with these old films, the romance is basically just something added as a box to check off but there isn’t a lot of development or anything like that. I would say the extra time is really for Nina’s subplot as Chris leaves her with an old friend…or intended to. The old friend is actually dead so she ends up with a nice cook who works for more of a total villain. Yeah the kid can’t catch a break but she also made things tough in the first place.

There’s one long scene near the end where she’s standing in the cold water with a scowl on her face while Chris is fighting one of the villains. Every time the camera pans to her you’re expecting a different reaction or something but instead she’s just there the whole time with no change. Ah well, I guess she was just that overwhelmed at the time. There just wasn’t much else for her to do at that point.

As always these films have really fun action scenes. It was nice to see Chris dishing out absolute haymakers to anyone who tried to go against him. He even handles himself very well in a 3 on 1 fist fight near the beginning of the film. Yeah maybe that will seem a little cheesy but you can tell these henchmen are used to fighting against people who won’t try and oppose them. So getting into a real fight it makes sense that they would not be a match. Chris is also allowed to get hit and be temporarily overwhelmed as well so it’s not like he’s an absolute terminator.

You do have the obligatory gunfighting later on as well although there isn’t a ton of that over here. I would say that the vast majority of action is close quarters here. Either way I personally find those to be more fun than the gunfights. I like a good gunfight as much as the next guy but you just feel the blows so much more when it’s an old fashioned fistfight.

The film has some fun tunes as you would expect. Mix that in with good writing as well as quick pacing and you’ve got yourself solid fundamentals. It’s why I would be surprised if any of the Wayne films ended up being downright bad. When your fundamentals are that good, it takes something huge to destroy the score, like if it suddenly involved animal violence or something like that. Occasionally you’ll see a horse fall down which is never cool but at least the films don’t really go beyond that.

Overall, This film was pretty solid. You get your classic action scenes here and Chris tends to be in charge of the situation. If you’re a side character, your odds of surviving are always more of a 50/50 so that’s part of the fun. Even this kind of film will usually have a body count by the end after all. The film is also really short as you would expect so there’s no reason not to watch it. I would even say it probably has a little more going on than the average title with so many characters in the picture. It does mean that there is less time to focus on each individual character though so we’ll see if the tradeoff is worth it for you when viewing the film.

Overall 7/10

Old Yeller Review

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Old Yeller is one of those films where you immediately know that it’s not going to be very good. Nothing about it particularly stands out for good reasons but there are sure a lot of bad ones. When a dog is a prominent character in a film, odds are that the movie will not be able to hold itself back from having bad things happen to it. That’s just the way that these things go.

The movie starts with a man leaving his family behind as he has a job to do and so his older son Travis vows to protect the family. The problem is that he is out of his depth from the start as he constantly panics and blames everyone else for his shortcomings. He goes as far as to threaten the local stray, Old Yeller. Travis never appears as a reasonable character for a large chunk of the film and even lays an intentional trap to try and shoot Yeller. This kid’s not above throwing rocks at the dog either. All in all, a sad excuse for a main character. You’re absolutely waiting for him to get humbled the whole time and admit that he never had a good plan.

As the film goes on you never get to be a fan of him. He’s rude and immature for the duration of the film. Meanwhile his younger brother Arliss isn’t as bad although he is so young that he does manage to get into a lot of trouble on multiple occasions. He’s just not old enough to know what’s going on and has a habit of disobeying authority which doesn’t help. You’ll be cringing at several of his scenes.

Meanwhile their mom Katie does her best to keep a hands off approach but sometimes you feel like she should be doing a bit more. She calls out Travis when he keeps making mistakes in the intro but perhaps it was her time to take charge by this point. She also has to play nice with the annoying neighbors who come to visit. I won’t be as harsh in this instance because it’s probably the smart play while they’re all alone. It’ll just make you annoying at Arliss again for making them have to cook dinner.

Some would say that the kids in this film are realistic but all that counts is how annoying they are here. Yeller does good, he’s probably the only high quality character in the film. He fights hard at all times and really dominates. The only time he’s on the losing side of things is when the pesky humans get in the way. So that’s not really something that would be his fault.

The supporting characters were not all that good either. In particular, Yeller’s old owner stands out. You would have expected him to have been ready to fight for Yeller the whole way through. Why would you let some kids keep him? That just doesn’t make any sense and makes the guy not look like a good owner. Yeah some kids would be sad about it but you’d be even sadder to lose your dog. It’s really no contest.

Of course the biggest issue the film has is the animal violence. You probably guessed that by this point though. There is quite a bit of it as animals are hunted left and right while of course stuff happens with Yeller. The film has no shortage of making sure you don’t have a whole lot of fun with this one and this absolutely sealed the deal for the film. It’s not like I find the old west to be a great backdrop in the first place. So it’s not like the film had any backup there. In the end the deck was absolutely stacked against it.

I don’t even think a remake would be able to do a whole lot of good here. Ultimately what would hold that one back is that even if they change the ending, I’m sure there will be a lot of turmoil with the dog and they will probably want to keep the other animal stuff present as well. Lets face it, this is the ultimate lose-lose kind of situation. It’s why generally my advice to filmmakers is not to include animals in their movies at all. Yeah sometimes you will get a harmless one but those are exceptionally rare.

I suppose a remake could at least make the kid less annoying though. Maybe age him up so he’s already an adult and doesn’t have to be trying so hard with little results this time around. Maybe it’ll be more of an invasion film where he’s attacked by Indians or something. Now if there’s one positive I can say for the film, it’s that the runtime isn’t super long. If this film were 2 hours then it would have definitely been really rough. It would have been dragged on forever, so I give the film credit for showing some restraint there.

Overall, Old Yeller is not a film that I would recommend to anyone. It fails the basic lesson of all films which is that they’re supposed to be fun. A film that does not provide any entertainment value is one that was doomed from the start. This is definitely a film with 0 replay value and you will want to stay far away from it. If you need to watch a quality film with dogs, I’d say to grab a random Air Bud film. Those usually have a tendency to be pretty solid all the way around.

Overall 1/10